See Fred Savage’s Replacement In The Wonder Years
Get your first look at The Wonder Years reboot in the teaser trailer.
This article is more than 2 years old
Yes, they are rebooting The Wonder Years. ABC is bringing this sitcom set in the 1960s back around, and Fred Savage is even involved as an executive producer on the project. We now have our first look teaser from the studio where they have given us a thirty-second glimpse at what the new show will be like.
Watch The Wonder Years reboot teaser below.
The teaser trailer for The Wonder Years reveals that the narrator for the series is going to be Don Cheadle. That’s a big score for the new series, for sure. Cheadle’s voice is recognizable and he’s made a great career for himself so far. As with the original series, we’ll likely never actually see Don Cheadle on screen. Instead, we’ll be seeing Elisha “EJ” Williams as the young actor playing the main character, Dean Williams. (Yes, the actor has the same last name as the family in the new show.) While this new reboot for The Wonder Years will still be set in the suburbs in the 1960s, it’s not meant to be the same family. The original series took place anywhere and everywhere, meaning they never named the town. This is a common strategy in classic suburban sitcoms.
This new series will take place in Montgomery, Alabama. This news has led many to point out that the new series must be tackling racial injustice. There’s no way to set a middle-class Black family in the late 1960s in Montgomery, Alabama without racial injustice being part of the series. However, the teaser trailer for The Wonder Years points out that while the time and location may indicate that’s part of the story, this is still a reboot of the classic show. Fred Savage is involved. They’re working to recapture that vibe of the old series.
The attempts to recapture the magic of The Wonder Years from its first time around can be seen in small details. The font and coloring that they’re using to name the executive producers, tell the audience that this is a coming-of-age story, and finally to show the title of the show is all written in very similar color and font to that of the original show.
The original opening scene had Kevin Arnold playing baseball, and we see Dean playing baseball here. We also see Dean looking longingly at a girl in class and talking about his future first kiss. Of course, fans of The Wonder Years immediately think of Winnie Cooper from the original series, the girl Kevin forever adored.
If you listen to the trailer, you may hear something you know. That’s the original theme song from The Wonder Years playing in the background of the teaser trailer, With a Little Help From My Friends. The music sounds the same, but it sounds like someone other than Joe Cocker is singing the original show’s theme song. It’s unclear who is singing the song in this new teaser, although someone else is apparently singing the theme song in the original series today as it streams on Hulu. The theme song was always a major part of the original series. Are they just using it for the teaser, or will it be the theme for the new show? Hopefully, they’re keeping it.
